UK’s First & Only Arts Festival For Children By Children Launches in Leamington Spa

The first and only arts festival curated and delivered by children for children will launch in Leamington Spa on Saturday 15th July, when five local primary schools come together to present the SPLAT Festival.

Featuring a host of children’s performances, an art gallery, stalls and activities to take part in, as well as professional performances from Highly Sprung, Pif Paf Theatre, the Fabularium, Talking Birds, and games and fun across all different art forms, the festival will be free for all attending.

The event is the culmination of a two year project, the Arts Active Network, which was a collaboration between the schools, Warwick Arts Centre and Warwick District Council. The project gave the children and teachers access to a variety of professionals who shared skills and built confidence through creative workshops and masterclasses with performers. In addition, over the past couple of years the children have seen the work of professional artists in a variety of artforms, made new works of art of their own inspired by these visits and then shared them with the other schools and with friends and families through a creative programme entitled ‘See, Make, Share’.

The final piece of work for the project was the planning, building, programming, fundraising, marketing and publicising of SPLAT Festival.

Carly Mee, Education Officer at Warwick Arts Centre, says: “The ethos behind the whole Arts Active Network project was to give the children the chance to see and make art, alongside giving the teachers and schools the tools they need to get art into the classroom and then out again, back into the community. The culmination of all this hard work over the past two years is the SPLAT Festival. The event will be packed full of arts, performances and creativity – all created by the children for children. It’s the only festival of its kind in the UK – a festival that the children have lead of every part of the event – and we hope that it will continue for many years to come with more and more children taking part.”

Mair Evans, Arts Development Officer at Warwick District Council says: “The opportunities offered by this project have been fantastic. Not only has it given children the chance to see and make art, but also the skills they need to put on a Festival that will hopefully sustain itself for years to come. The children taking part have benefitted tremendously from this enriched learning experience and they should be very proud of their achievements in putting on a Festival for children by children.”

SPLAT Festival takes place on Saturday 15th July at Jephson Gardens, Leamington Spa, from 11am – 4pm. For more information, please visit www.splatartsfestival.com